1964 Original French Marc Chagall Poster, Romeo and Juliet

1964 Original French Marc Chagall Poster, Romeo and Juliet

An exceptional poster in excellent condition from one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. This scene depicts Romeo and Juliet and was inspired by a section of the ceiling at the opera house. Published by the Office of French Tourism and printed by Imprimerie Mourlot.

Marc Chagall (1887 – 1985), was a Russian-French artist associated with one of the most successful artistic careers of the 20th century. He was an early modernist and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. He was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists." Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante garde. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism and Fauvism and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism." When Matisse dies," Picasso remarked during the 1950s, "Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is."